Trout is a species of marine fish rich in the most useful trace elements. It is often recommended to people who need to replenish the omega-3 supply, since its content in the product is quite high. However, how to cook such a product from the sea? There are many ways to do this, however, many gourmets admit that properly baked trout is truly delicious. How to do it? What features does this process have? About all this further.
How to choose the right fish
Trout is a fairly large fish, but its young individuals are lightweight - literally up to 1.5 kilograms. These types can be used for baking. In the event that you are dealing with a large carcass, it is best to cut it into portioned pieces in the form of steaks and bake in this form.
Which fish is ideal for cooking? The answer is simple - the latest. It contains the largest amount of vitamins, minerals and, of course, Omega-3 - all these elements are very useful for the body. In addition, fresh fish will be very juicy when cooked.
In the event that the fish purchased in a store or on the market was sold frozen (as most often happens), then it should be thawed naturally, at room temperature, or by putting it in the refrigerator for a while.
When choosing a carcass on the market, you must definitely pay attention to its appearance. The eyes of the fish should not be cloudy, and the skin - damaged - all these factors speak only about the low quality of the product. As for the color of meat, it should be bright red or light. In the event that the color of the fillet has a bluish tint, it is best to refrain from such a purchase.
Carcass pretreatment
Before preparing baked trout, it is necessary to pre-treat the main ingredient. The preparation of a carcass for cooking consists in washing, cleaning, and the head with fins being separated from it. In practice, some culinary specialists leave their heads for beauty, however, this is only appropriate if the whole fish is planned to be served.
After washing the carcass, it must be cleaned by removing the insides. For this purpose, it is best to use a very sharp knife with a serrated blade. They should make a large cut along the abdomen and slowly, very carefully pull out the insides. It is imperative to get rid of the films that are inside - as a rule, they significantly spoil the taste of the finished dish. After the entrails are removed, it is necessary to remove the gills (if the fish will cook with the head) and thoroughly wash the whole carcass.
Classic recipe
According to the classic recipe, baked trout is prepared exclusively on foil - this is necessary so that the tender fish meat does not burn to the sheet under the influence of high temperature.
To create a delicious dish, you need to take a couple of fish fillets, wash them and dry them with a paper towel. While it is drying, it is necessary to prepare a mixture of spices, salt and herbs, and then roll the pieces in it. Now the fish should be sprinkled with 10 g of olive oil and pour over the juice of one lemon. In this form, it must be sent to the refrigerator for pickling. After a couple of hours, pieces of trout should be placed on a baking sheet covered with foil, baked for 15 minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees. After this time, the oven must be turned off and the fish held in it for another 10-15 minutes.
Juicy fish (whole)
How to bake whole trout? The recipe proposed here provides a fairly simple technology for creating a piquant and very tasty dish.
To prepare such a fish, you should take a carcass, remove all the entrails and fins from it, leaving your head. After that, it is recommended to wash it thoroughly and dry it thoroughly with a paper towel.
In the meantime, prepare a spicy mass from one teaspoon of a mixture of peppers and a small amount of salt. She needs to grate a pre-processed carcass of fish. Above all, it should be poured with juice squeezed from half a lemon. Inside the fish, put in advance chopped greens of dill and parsley (one bunch each). In this form, trout should be sent to the refrigerator so that it is pickled - it will take about 20 minutes.
After the specified time, you need to turn on the oven, setting the temperature to 180 degrees, and prepare a baking sheet for baking - foil should be laid on it. On the foil, put the half of the lemon sliced in circles and place the pickled fish on it. On the carcass itself, it is also recommended to make several cuts and put in them a thin circle of citrus, as well as a small slice of butter. This is where the preparations end - the fish must be wrapped in foil and sent to the oven. Whole trout baked in foil will be ready in just half an hour.
Foil fillet
To prepare fish according to this recipe, you need to take 400 g of clean trout steaks and dry them with a towel. After that, it is necessary to gently rub it with a mixture of black and red ground peppers, as well as salt, sprinkle with a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice. After this, pieces should be grated with a mixture of a couple of tablespoons of mustard and one honey. In this form, the fish should be allowed to marinate for 20 minutes and wrap in foil.
Cook trout, baked in foil according to the recipe specified here, should be for 25 minutes in the oven, heated to 180 degrees. Some chefs recommend opening the foil just before the end of cooking (in five minutes) - so the pieces will get a delicious golden color.
Serve such trout, baked in foil, can be with a delicious sauce, which is also easy to prepare. To do this, you need to very finely chop a bunch of dill and combine it with three tablespoons of sour cream and a little more than half a glass of unsweetened yogurt. The mass should be sent to a blender and beat it there. After this procedure, a tablespoon of lemon juice and half mustard is added to the bowl - the whipping process must be repeated. The sauce is ready.
Fish with vegetables
Baked trout with vegetables is a great option for a hearty and tasty dish for any celebration or family dinner. Many prefer to cook it only because, in combination with fish, a side dish is prepared for it, which also has amazing taste qualities.
To create this real masterpiece, you need to take a carcass of fish (500 g) and pretreat with it. After that, it should be wiped with a towel and greased with a mixture of salt, as well as ground black pepper - this must be done both inside and out. After that, it is necessary to pour it with juice squeezed from half a lemon, and send it in the refrigerator for pickling a little less than half an hour.
In the meantime, you can start preparing vegetables. For the above amount of fish, it is optimal to take one red bell pepper, onion and medium tomato. All vegetables must be cut into rings, and the tomato - in large cubes. There you must add a chopped sprig of dill and parsley.
When the fish is properly pickled, it must be laid out on a baking sheet previously covered with foil, put on it a sliced half of lemon, and on top of it - fish, in which you should put chopped vegetables (you can also add your favorite spices to them). All this composition must be wrapped in foil and put in a bake in the oven at a temperature of 180 degrees. The preparation process should take no more than 30 minutes.
Ready-made fish can be served with sprigs of dill and parsley.
Rainbow trout
Rainbow trout is also loved by many gourmets. Despite the fact that its taste is substantially similar to those inherent in the ordinary variety of fish, it is somewhat different in appearance. How to recognize rainbow trout? First of all, you should pay attention to its elongated carcass, as well as the absence of red spots on the scales. Moreover, the body of the rainbow trout has a wide strip, which is hard to miss.
Correctly baked rainbow trout can surprise visitors who have arrived, as well as their households. How to cook such a dish? The amount of all ingredients presented in this recipe is calculated on three small carcasses of fish (250 g each).
The preparation of such a dish should begin with the creation of a marinade, which will give it piquancy. To do this, squeeze the juice from half a lemon into a deep plate, add a teaspoon of a mixture of dried herbs, a spoon of olive oil, and salt to taste to it. After that, all components should be mixed thoroughly. Next, with such a mixture, grate carcasses of fish, over which preliminary treatment should be performed. The container with the fish should be covered with cling film and sent to a cool place for pickling for an hour and a half.
After the specified time, turn on the oven and set the temperature in it to 200 degrees. While it is heating, it is necessary to do the preparation of an orange. It should be washed and cut into thin slices or slices - they should be placed in the abdomen of the fish, after which all the components of the dishes should be placed on the foil, wrapped and sent to the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Trout baked in this way is perfect for a family dinner.
River trout with dried fruits
In addition to sea trout, you can also find river trout on the market. It is also not difficult to cook it, in particular it is combined harmoniously with dried fruits. The preparation of such a dish just needs to start with their processing. To do this, in slightly warm water should be washed with 300 g of prunes and dried apricots, as well as a couple of tablespoons of raisins. After this, the components should be put in heated water for 15 minutes so that they swell.
In the meantime, it is necessary to carry out the initial processing of the carcass of the fish (about 600 g). After it is washed and dried, it must be rubbed with a mixture of salt and peppers to taste. Then in her abdomen should be placed half the dried fruit, which must first be chopped. After all the preparations have been made, the fish should be laid out on a baking sheet covered with foil, fixed with the abdomen with toothpicks and wrapped tightly, sent to the oven, heated to 200 degrees. Cooking a baked river trout takes no more than 30 minutes.
While the fish is in the preparation stage, you can make a delicious dressing for it. To do this, chop one onion and fry it in a pan using oil (preferably olive). To it you need to add the second half of dried fruit. In this composition, the ingredients must be stewed until they are ready.
When the baked trout is ready, it is recommended to serve it with fried dried fruits, lemon slices and herbs.
Up the sleeve
Whole baked trout can be cooked very quickly in the oven using a sleeve for this process. To create a tasty and fragrant dish in this way, you should take a fish weighing about a kilogram and pre-process it.
While it will dry, you can do the preparation of the marinade. To do this, mix in one dish a small half of a teaspoon of sea salt, as well as 6 g of ground black pepper. With this mixture, grate the fish from all sides and sprinkle it with juice squeezed from a third of the lemon. On top of all this should be coated with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. The whole structure should be left for 15-20 minutes in a cool place so that the trout is marinated.
After the allotted time, the fish must be removed and a few cuts made on its ear. They should be shoved into a thin slice of lemon, a piece of butter, as well as a sprig of parsley. In this form, the carcass must be sent to the sleeve, close it tightly and pierced in several places to avoid explosion when heated. The sleeve with the fish should be put on the prepared baking tray and send all this to the oven, which by that time should be heated to 200 degrees. The cooking process should last about 40 minutes. As some chefs recommend, 5-7 minutes before the end of baking, the sleeve can be cut so that a delicious crust forms on the surface of the fish.
This recipe for baked trout involves serving the fish separately, with the addition of fresh herbs and, if desired, slices of lemon.
With cheese and mayonnaise
A hot dish from this type of fish will turn out to be very original if you cook it with the addition of mayonnaise and grated cheese. To create such baked trout steaks, you should take five pre-processed slices and sprinkle them on all sides with juice squeezed from half a lemon.
Separately, you need to prepare a mixture of 150 g of sour cream and half a glass of mayonnaise, as well as 80 g of grated hard cheese and leave it to infuse for some period. In another bowl, you need to prepare a sprinkle for the finished dish, which is made from a small amount of parsley and dill, finely chopped, as well as 70-80 g of grated hard cheese.
Steaks soaked in juice should be slightly fried in a pan with the addition of olive oil. The duration of such a process should not be long - literally 1.5-2 minutes for each side is enough for this. After this procedure, the slices should be laid out, liberally coated on all sides with a mixture that was prepared from sour cream, mayonnaise and cheese. They must be placed on a baking sheet with foil and sent for 5-7 minutes in the oven, preheated to 200 degrees. After that, already slightly baked trout steaks should be removed from the oven, sprinkled with a mixture of cheese and herbs, and then returned to finish cooking - this process will take about 20 minutes. The output will be a very juicy fish with a creamy taste and cheese crust.
Cream trout
A wonderful and tender dish for any table is trout baked in cream. To prepare it, you need to take a couple of small carcasses of river trout and perform primary processing on them, removing all unnecessary. After that, each of them must be carefully rubbed with a mixture of spices to taste, which must necessarily contain black ground pepper and salt. In this form, it should be set aside and do other preparations.
While the fish is pickling, it is necessary to turn on the oven and set the temperature in it to warm up 200 degrees. In the meantime, you also need to prepare vegetables: a couple of onions should be cut into rings, chopped into circles the same amount of medium-sized tomatoes. In addition, you need to grate 250 g of hard cheese in a separate bowl, for which you can use a coarse grater.
After a few minutes, put the fish on a baking sheet covered with foil, pour 1.5 cups of cream with a high fat content into it, and then cover it with a layer of vegetables. On top of the whole structure should be sprinkled with cheese. In this form, the fish must be sent to the oven for 25 minutes to cook.
In the same way, you can cook trout baked with potatoes - for this, 3-4 potatoes should be added to the listed ingredients and put them in the bottom of the dish, under the fish.
Secrets of trout cooking
As you know, trout is a fish that is prepared very simply, but in the process of creating a real culinary masterpiece there are subtleties. One of them is the right choice of sauce, which is added to the bulk before baking - it should be juicy, nutritious and fat. For this purpose, it is optimal to use sour cream, cream, butter or olive oil. In addition, to give the dish a special juiciness, the fish for it must be marinated for at least 15-20 minutes.
How much to cook fish? When answering such a question, one should pay attention to the fact that the trout, baked foil, takes a little longer to prepare than the one that is provided for in open form - as a rule, this takes about 40 minutes. However, if the fish is open, then half an hour or even a little less is enough for this. Otherwise, there is a risk of overdried delicacy.